Comment When Denis Vladmirovich Molla told authorities his camp was set on fire and his garage defaced, the Minnesota man said whoever carried out the attack was motivated by the “Trump 2020” flag displayed from his vehicle. As photos surfaced of a vandalized garage door in September 2020 that was spray-painted with “Biden 2020,” “BLM” and an anarchy symbol, Molla raised thousands of dollars for the reported arson through his insurance company and online donations from sympathetic supporters of Trump who denounced the attack as politically motivated. “It just shook me,” Mola told WCCO hours after the incident. “Such things shouldn’t happen, especially for some kind of belief.” But prosecutors concluded nearly two years later that Molla staged the entire incident. Federal authorities announced Tuesday that Mola, 29, has been charged with two counts of wire fraud for filing false insurance claims and benefiting from online fundraisers connected to the arson spree. Prosecutors allege Molla submitted a claim to his insurance company for more than $300,000 and received about $61,000. He later accused his insurance company of “cheating him”. Molla also used donations from the GoFundMe account “Patriots for the Mollas” to deposit more than $17,000 into his personal bank account, according to charging documents. Shortly after the incident, Molla and his wife, Deana, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that they and their 2-year-old son and 5-month-old daughter were sleeping at home when the camper was set on fire. He had initially reported to authorities that someone had set fire to his camper and told local media that he had seen three people running from his home. “In fact, as Molla was well aware, Molla set fire to his own property, Molla spray-painted the graffiti on his own property, and there were no unknown men near his home,” prosecutors said in charging documents. Molla, of Brooklyn Center, Minn., was released from custody without bond on a promise to appear in court, according to court documents. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday. If convicted of one of the federal fraud charges, Mola faces up to 20 years in prison. The announcement of the charges came on the same day the January 6 committee held another hearing in which it sought to link former President Donald Trump to the most violent extremists who led the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The committee reiterated its argument that Trump knew what he was doing and should be held accountable. On Tuesday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) argued that Trump was, at the very least, “willfully blind” to the fact that his own advisers were telling him he had lost the election to Joe Biden. “President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He’s not a flashy kid,” Cheney said. “Like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his actions and choices. Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by claiming he is willfully blind.” 5 takeaways from the Jan. 6 hearing on extremism and Trump First responders arrived at the home in Downtown Brooklyn shortly after 3 a.m. on September 23, 2020. The fire from the mobile home ended up burning the detached garage, totaling three vehicles and causing minor damage to the home. Police said at the time that first responders helped pull three dogs and four puppies from the home, according to the Star Tribune. “I just heard a big, loud bang or bang,” Mola told WCCO at the time. He said he remembered thinking, “What’s going on?” The family told the CBS affiliate in 2020 that Mola, a contractor, took the flag about a week after he had a workplace dispute over his support for Trump. Molla, who claimed at the time that people were slowly walking past the house when he had raised the Trump flag, told KARE last year that he saw three “figures” in his yard the night of the fire and claimed one of those people dropped a matchbox as he drove them away. “Our family is safe, that’s the main thing,” he told WCCO hours after the incident. “All these are material, they are all material. It’s not as important as our family.” That didn’t stop Molla from filing hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance claims, according to prosecutors. When his insurance company denied some of his claims, Molla claimed he was being defrauded and threatened to report the alleged malpractice to the Minnesota Department of Commerce and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D). Molla’s case gained national attention. Two GoFundMe fundraisers in support of Molla had been running for nearly two years. (They appeared to have been taken down Wednesday.) The story was promoted by conservative and right-wing media outlets, including Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham. “This is a message being sent from the far left, and I think people are starting to see that incendiary behavior, looting, even murder — none of that is off the table,” Ingraham said at the time. But an investigation by the FBI and the Brooklyn Downtown Police Department found that Mola, and not an individual or group of people, was responsible for the arson and vandalism, authorities said. This isn’t the first time a Trump supporter has staged a fake incident and pinned it on someone else. In 2017, Stephen Marks admitted to spray painting playground equipment at a Hartford elementary school in an attempt to frame liberals and Democrats. Marks, who wrote phrases such as “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump,” was charged with third-degree felonies and breach of peace and ordered to stay away from the school, the Hartford Courant reported at the time. Amber Phillips contributed to this report.
